Flexplay: The Disposable DVD that Failed (Thankfully)

I mentioned the tragedy of the commons a couple of times in this video. This is an old but (in my opinion) underutilized term for the concept of what happens when shared resources are used by individuals acting in their own best interest. Although the term is flawed and some situations are far more complex than can be explained in four easy words, it’s a useful reminder that things that seem harmless on an individual level can scale in ways we can’t grasp. If you’d like to learn a little more about this concept, check out this website I found; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Me: "Mom, can we watch Charlotte's Web?" Mom: "Sorry honey, it expired last week."

They were so proud of the concept that they made the company self-destruct as well.

There is something so horribly depressing about this, I can just picture a little kid buying Chrarrolets Web and not understanding why their favorite movie just stopped

Another problem: The consumer is much more likely to rent another movie if they have to return the first one, continuing the rental cycle. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the “environmentalist pressure” was applied by the rental companies themselves.

The jokes on them. I store my DVD player in an airtight box filled with nitrogen.

Broke: e-waste Woke: T E C H N O T R A S H

The rental model worked quite well because upon return, usually the consumer would rent another one on impulse.

Surprisingly Redbox is still popular. The one at the grocery store I work at has people standing in front of it all day. I'm glad disc rentals haven't fully died out. Watching my mom come home from work with a Redbox disc in her hand was always an awesome treat and I always got excited to see what new movie we would be watching.

opens disc Flexplay: "I have decided that I want to die."

I remember buying a couple of these just to see if it was possible to rip them to the computer before the disc oxidized. It was.

I remember my dad talking about these. They were very popular with long-haul truck drivers. You could get these things at the major truck stops, watch the movie in the off time, then toss it. Most truckers had a portable TV/DVD, but not a ton of space to store movies. And since many places, especially in the Midwest, didnt have Redbox yet, it could be hard to return a rented disk on time. Another perk was a trucker could buy these disks on the company account while buying other work supplies at the truck stops or even pay with cash. If a driver wanted to use Redbox, they woud have to use their own personal credit card. So, I guess the Flexplay system did "work", but only for a relatively small market. Of course, when truckers started using Wi-Fi or smart phones, there was no need to use disks at all.

"You will own nothing and be happy" This DVD concept was ahead of its time

Watching Mission Impossible. "This DVD will self destruct in 10 seconds"

Thankfully, they patented every conceivable way to make a aelf destructing disc, so nobody else can create such an abomination

I actually still have one I purchased from Staples, The Kite Runner. IT STILL WORKS! The disc has air gaps in the center that allows oxygen to slowly degrade the disc, BUT if you quickly apply superglue after opening to seal that gap.... no degradation! At the time this wasn't a mystery and info and methods were readily available online via forums. I only bought the disc for the challenge of making it permanent. I was an early Netflix and Blockbuster by Mail so even paying $5-6 to permanently own the disc wasn't that appealing because the selection was poor and I still had to drive TO the store to buy it.

Talking about self-destructive media storage, Hideo Kojima (that Metal Gear daddy) once thought of using this kind of CD when developing Metal Gear Solid. He said if Snake died, the PlayStation disc would be permanently unusable. Good thing this tech never took off.

Hearing "11 years ago" in reference to 2008 made my head hurt.

Imagine having a DVD that expires before the soup in your pantry.

Gotta love how he managed to futureproof for Disney+ when it was about half a year away! Also, did Flexplay ever think about the obvious thing of just backing up the ISO file?